Ernest Hemingway: The

Snows of Kilimanjaro
Presented by Dorottya Zsindely
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 Intro 02 Symbolism

03 Memories

03 Characters 04 Background & Movie

 INTRO
Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said
to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the
Masai "Ngaje Ngai," the House of God. Close to the western summit
there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has
explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
 INTRO
Then they began to climb and they were going to the East it seemed,
and then it darkened and they were in a storm, the rain so thick it
seemed like flying through a waterfall, and then they were out and
Compie turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead,
all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and
unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro.
 Symbolism

Vultures The gangrenous leg Wealth

Death Harry’s moral corruption and Harry’s wife’s fortune
artistic decay. symbolize the very forces
that have culminated in the
deterioration of Harry’s
moral and artistic integrity.
 Symbolism

Leopard Hyena Accidental scratch

It represents all that he has Death and Harry’s Parallel to the way he
not accomplished. personality. destroyed his talent in the
first place.
Memories
• Overwhelming memories
• world change … He had
Breathless sentences
• Sentences are shorter, and
Harry offers analysis of his
past
“Now in his mind he saw a
“There was so much to
write. He had seen the
railway station at
Karagatch and he was
standing with his pack and been in it and he had
that was the headlight of watched it and it was his
duty to write of it; but now
the Simplon-Orient cutting
the dark now and he was he never would.”
leaving Thrace then after
the retreat.” “It wasn’t this woman’s
fault. If it had not been she
it would have been another.
If he lived by a lie he should
try to die by it.”
CHARACTERS
 Helen Harry

Wealthy Likes to drink, shoot, and A thorn scratch leads to

women make love Dying his leg becoming infected
with gangrene.

Struggling to bear the Unfulfilled Inner battle, seeks

Widow weight of the loss potential someone to blame.

Lazy and Marries for money, drinks

Kind, strong She tooks care of him unproductive a lot
 BACKGROUND
• Hemingway had been on
many safaris in Africa.

• There are many

autobiographical allusions
in the novel.

• Struggling writer – wealthy

wife
The Snows of Kilimanjaro

1952 movie
Directed by Henry King

● They change the ending so that

Harry does not die

● Extra characters like Cynthia

Green played by Ava Gardner

● Hemingway claims the movie

was only one-third the story he
had written.
 QUESTIONS
1. Hemingway had heard about the frozen carcass of a leopard on Mount Kilimanjaro from a former safari
guide. Why did he begin his story with that information? Does it relate in any way to the other cat, the
hyena that comes near the camp, or does it relate to the plane trip that Harry imagined?
2. Had Harry feared death most of his life? What is his view of death throughout the story?
3. How does Harry feel about the rich?
4. Why did Harry call it bragging when Helen told him she did everything he wanted to do?
5. Did Harry love Helen? Why did he say he did not and then change his mind and tell her he did love her?
THANKS
Does anyone have any questions?

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